During the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in February 1968 an Australian infantry company assaulted a North Vietnamese bunker complex. In the longest sustained attack fought by Australians during the Vietnam War the soldiers went forward again and again over three days. Yet the battle passed without any notice in Australia at the time, and the men who fought it were further insulted by higher command’s apparent failure to acknowledge what they had done. Above all decorations for their bravery seemed pitifully meagre. What happened? Why did these men fall through the net of our historical memory?
In answering these questions Gerard Windsor brings up into relief so many of the individual soldiers who went into this battle. All Day Long the Noise of Battle is a book about the strengths and problems of this group of men, their alliances and tensions, their relaxations and misbehaviour, their morale, their internal tensions, their reactions to combat, their stand-out characters and their leaders. And throughout, All Day Long the Noise of Battle becomes an essay on the nature of men’s memory of battle.
